The Indianapolis journal., 1887-11-13
Clara Sees Palm Reader Heron Allen and Se-
lima Dolaro at Theater and Gossips Lit
tie Concerning the Famous Pair.
Fashionable Women Shorten Their
Dresses One Inch at the Wrong End.
Bad Manners of Richiy-Appareled Women III
Public Places-Sentment at an Auction
Woman Who Doesn't Need Testimonial.
Special to the indianapolis Journal.

NEW YORK, Nov. 12-Roscoe Conkling sat
next to me in theater, the other evening. A
hand was laid on his shoulder from behind. It
belonged to certain highly fashionable matron
of his acquaintance, but it was large member,
Notwithstanding that it had never done any
labor. s'Yes, sir" said Conkling mistaking it for
the hand of man. Then his eyer ,ell on the
feminine sleeve attached to it, and he confusedly
murmured: Il beg your pardon 80, no offense,
1 assure you," the lady good d-humoredly re-
sponded. Mr.. Conkling then said; 'This re-
minds me of an actual case in which a mistake in
the gender of hand brought about divorce
suit. A wife had large hand, and it happened
one evening that she sat with her husband and
several others on rural verada. The husband
was smoking cigarette, and, as it was very
dark indeed, the wife took it from him for a
surreptitious Whit. Now. right alongside the
couple sat a fiirtatious girl. She and the man
were on sentimental terms, but until now quite
unknown to the woman. The well developed
hand of the wife. with the cigarette CHANGED to
swing into contact with that of the girl. who
took hold of it, thought from its size that it was
the husbands, felt convinced of it by the Gig
arctic, and herself pressed it to her lips, raptur
ously believing that she was taking safe oppor-
tunity of the darkness The eyes of the wife
were opened metaphorically. If not physically.
she watched the pair for few days, and an ac-
ton for divorce was soon instituted"
PalmiSt1.y was re presented close by in that
audience by Heron Allen, the London chap who
got twenty five dollars for each examination of
hand and delineation of the owners character,
long his London reputation lasted with
imitation aristocrats. but who soon dropped
his price to ten, and then Eve dollars without
saving his fad from dying out. He Is just
the sweetest little dandy of the English pattern
that the mind can eonceive-handsome. soulful
and stylish. He was here with Selma Dolaro,
twice his age, professedly almost dead of con-
sumption. but still present object of adnira-
ton and of past romantic history. No actress
ever had more remarkable LodZon career, for
she figured in titled society as well as in stage
adventures She was originally brought to
America prima donna for grand opera. and
she encountered more bad than good luck until
benefit performance was last winter given for
her and she went to- Florida to die. Sic ra-z
turned alive, however, and iocularly remarked
that she hoped nobody would demand a return
of money because she hadn't died according to
promise Her triumphant popularity is that
she retains her power of fascination. Judging
by the fact that she is usually seen at the thea
ter with some gay young beau or other half her
age.
AS to beauty lady member of William K.
Nanderbit's distinguished travelling party which
yachted its way across the Atlantic, spent the
summer in Scotland. and is now going to occupy
for awhile the late King of Bavaria's Castle
Lndenhof has written to a friend ssThere is
not much use in---coming to London
with any idea Of cutting dash as American.
Buffalo Bill has been the American representa-
tive lion; he is to be displaced by prize-fghter
Sullivan; and with those two posed as
Americans nobody can successfully follow them
unless he can knock out ten Buffaloes at once"
She ioked but she told the truth. London So
ciety will accept dantily lovely American girls,
but the eockney idea of Yankee manhood is un-
gentle.
The fashionable ladies have lost an inch from
their dresses. There is no mistake about it. It
was whispered all town that it looked
that way on the morning after the
first night of grand opera Wednesday. By
Friday night there was no longer a tiny bit of
doubt about it. The lost inch first showed its
absence in about half the boxes, scattered here
and there on the two private tiers of the great
golden opera house. The daughter of famous
light of the bar, the young wife of an ancient
Knickerbocker business hoI and the fascinat-
ing widow of the head of a family of land barons
on Manhattan island had all lost something more
than inch of their 1ow-cut gowns on the first
night, and as they lead the fashion might all
have known what was coming, yet here and
there were seen other ladies of the field of the
cloth of gold whose necks were no more uncov-
cred than last year. However, every one of
these was matron with her young daughters
around her, like chicks keeping close to the ma
ternal bird 1t would never have done for such
a radical movement to be led by the mothers;
and even to-day see that some of these parental
pillars of fashion have got the upper edge of
their opera dresses just where they always had
them-a hands breadth from where the chin will
touch the neck.
n last
day and Friday. Even the haughtiest modistes.
who like to go out of evening themselves and
who never break business rules except for those
whose husbands settle the bills without a mur-
muir, even these swell dress makers had to sit up
late and begin work early to cut an inch off all
the dresses that poured in upon them after the
opening of the opera. And when Friday night
came it was not the rolling up of the stage cur
tain on ''Siegfriedr that elected as much atten-
ton as the rolling down of three score coverings
of silk and satin many displays of una
dorned 1ovelineSs in the boxes. / cannot better
express what the effect, the grand result. was in
any better way than to say that great many
ladies for the first time in their lives were
dressed in a manner 'f1t for presentation to the
queen" / could put it trihe more forcibly by
saying that if twenty years ago any man or
woman had dared to tell nineteen out of twenty
of these ladies that they would one day sit in a
public theatre in undress not yet equaled on
the stage they would have Indignantly and tear
fully denied the possibility of such thing.
If they would only behave well as the COM
mon folks That is what always pops into my
mind when I am at the opera; and always mars
the scene for me- For the truth is that accord
ing to ordinary human rules these grandees
(particularly the low-neck pink and white onesl
are very coarse and rude. They chatter and
laugh next door to out loud during the perform
ances, they motion to one another across the
house, they entertain the gentlemen who call at
their boxes in such way as to attract all the
lorgnettes in the house-and sometimes they
are married and the gentlemen they entertain so
particularly not only not their husbands but
are men of wide known dubiousness of charac-
ter. They giggle and devour bonbons and read
letters and stare folks out of conteEance with
their opera glasses, and. altogether they act as
if they were law unto themselves. / can't for
the life of me- see why u cannot be a
lady even If her husband is worth million.
There was bit of sentiment in an auction
sale this week Although it was disposal of